The Eagles Conquest

Chapter Twelve

'Where the hell is the Second?' Vitellius asked bitterly, not for the first time. Legate Geta exchanged a look with his chief centurion and briefly raised his eyes before drawing closer to the tribune crouching beneath his shield.

'A quiet word of advice: officers should always consider how their demeanour affects the men around them. If you want to make a career out of the army you must set a good example. So let's have no more of this nonsense about the Second, all right? Now get off your belly and stand up.'

At first Vitellius was incredulous. Here they were, right in the middle of a first-class military disaster, and Geta was more concerned about etiquette. But the contemptuous looks he was getting from the veterans who made up the command party shamed him. He nodded, swallowed, and rose to his feet, taking his place with the rest or the officers and standard bearers. The fire they had at first attracted from the British slingers had slackened as soon as the cohorts charged the palisade and now only the occasional quick shot could be spared in their direction.

Even so, two of the Ninth's tribunes had been downed. One lay dead at the foot of the eagle standard, his face shattered by the impact of a lead shot. The other had just been struck on the shin. The bone was smashed. The young officer was white-faced with the effort not to let out a cry as he looked at the bone protruding from his skin. Vitellius was relieved when a burly legionary heaved the tribune up onto his shoulders and headed back across the river.

And there, surging down the slope and into the water came the Fourteenth Legion. For an instant Vitellius' spirits soared at the prospect of reinforcements, a reeling shared by the rest or the colour party, until they saw how the tide was slowly covering the ford. Vitellius turned back to the legate, unable to conceal his alarm.

'What's the general up to?'

'It's all in the plan,' Geta replied calmly. 'You should know, you were at the briefing.'

'But the river! We won't be able to get back across unless we withdraw now, sir.' Vitellius looked round the colour party despairingly. Surely someone would agree with him, but the contempt in their expressions only deepened. 'We can't just sit here, sir. We must do something.. Before it's too late.'

Geta regarded him silently for a moment, then pursed his lips and nodded. 'You are right, of course, Vitellius. We must do something.' Turning to the colour party, he drew his sword. 'Raise the eagle. We're going to advance.'

'What?' Vitellius stared at him in disbelief, and shook his head, desperately trying to think of a way to talk the legate out of the crazy decision. 'But, sir. The eagle – what if it's lost?'

'It won't be, once the men see it right at the front. Then they'll fight to the last drop of blood to follow it to victory, or die in its defence.' 'But it'd be safer where it is, sir,' Vitellius countered.

'Look here, Tribune,' Geta said sternly. 'That's an eagle up on the standard, not a bloody chicken. It's supposed to inspire men to valour, not to save their skins. I've had just about enough of your whining. You're supposed to be a hero. I thought you'd saved the Second Legion's bacon! Now I wonder… But you're with us right now, and I need every man I can get hold of. So shut your mouth and draw your bloody sword.'

The steel in the legate's tone was chilling. Without another word Vitellius drew his weapon and fell in behind the colour party. Geta led them at a trot over to where the First Cohort was battling to secure a foothold on the palisade. The wounded and dead carpeted the slope of the earthworks. As the colour party pressed through the throng towards the palisade, the British warriors hacked and slashed at them, their war cries deafening. At last the Ninth's eagle rose above the crush and the legionaries returned the British cries with a great roar of their own.

'Up the Hispania!'

The Romans fell upon their enemy with renewed energy and aggression and the flashing blades of the Roman short swords stabbed forward with deadly efficiency as all along the palisade the battle cry was taken up.

'Up the Hispania!'

Vitellius kept his silence as with gritted teeth he pressed on with the colour party up the slope. Suddenly he found himself hard up against the palisade – a line of rough-hewn posts driven into the ground. Overhead loomed a yelling British warrior, black against the brilliant blue of the sky, axe raised for the kill. Instinctively Vitellius thrust his sword at the man's face and ducked behind the rim of his shield. There was a sharp scream of agony an instant before the axe cracked into the reinforced trim along the top of the shield. Vitellius' legs buckled for a moment and then he was up again. A huge centurion was at his side, great arms wrapped round a wooden stake which he was wrestling free of the soil.

'Pull the palisade down!' the centurion bellowed, grabbing hold of the next stake. 'Pull it down!'

Other men followed suit and soon a number of small gaps had been wrenched in the palisade, and the Ninth began to force their way through to the flattened earth rampart beyond. To Vitellius' left the eagle rose, and Britons swarmed towards it, drawn on by a savage desire to seize the legion's standard and crush the resolve of their enemy. The fighting round the eagle was conducted with a terrible intensity that Vitellius could not have imagined possible from human beings. He turned away from the ghastly scene and urged the legionaries round him to press on through the palisade, jabbing his sword in the direction of the Britons.

'On, lads! On! Kill them! Kill them all!'

Hardly a man spared him a glance as they charged through. Only when he was sure that there were enough Romans on the rampart to form a living barrier between himself and the enemy did Vitellius climb through the ruined palisade and onto the rampart. From this height he had a quick chance to survey the immediate battlefield. On both sides the fighting line stretched out along the curved fortifications. Behind the Ninth Legion the First Cohort of the Fourteenth was emerging from the river and would shortly add its weight to the assault. Even now it might not be needed. Geta's desperate attempt to force the defences was succeeding, and more and more Romans were packing the rampart and pushing the Britons back, down the reverse slope and into their camp. Sensing that victory was at last in their grasp, and driven on by a blood-crazed desire to avenge the torment they had suffered on the killing ground by the river, the men of the Ninth savagely hacked their way forwards.

Vitellius went with them, urging the legionaries on as he sought to rejoin the colour party. He found them in a ring of bodies – Roman and Briton alike sprawled at the foot of the eagle. Most of the officers bore wounds from the desperate fight on the rampart and Vitellius saw that fewer than half of the original party were still on their feet. Geta was busy issuing orders to be carried to the cohort commanders to prevent their units from dispersing in a general pursuit of the enemy. The fresh troops of the Fourteenth would be permitted that duty while the Ninth secured the fortifications they had given so many lives to take.

'There you are, sir!' Vitellius called out cheerfully. 'We did it, sir! We beat 'em!'

'We?' Geta arched an eyebrow but Vitellius ploughed on. Sheathing his bloodied sword he grabbed the legate's hand and pumped it warmly. 'A brilliant action, sir. Quite brilliant. Wait until Rome hears about this!'

'I thought we'd lost you, Tribune,' Geta said quietly.

'Got separated in the crush, sir. I helped some lads break onto the rampart over that way.'

'I see.'

The two men faced each other for a moment, the tribune smiling effusively, the legate's expression cold and restrained. Vitellius broke the silence.